Battered sedans pull up at a downtown food pantry in this central Oregon town, bringing mothers, fathers and children.

The families stream inside. Soon they emerge carrying cardboard boxes full of cereal, canned beans, fresh fruit and day-old bread. Each month, volunteers at the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Crook County food pantry send an average of 373 boxes out the door.

Shirley McClung is 80 now, and her three children have made her stop driving -- she gave her truck to her grandson -- so when she goes out raising money for the program, someone has to take her. But for the last three years, as she's gone from store to store for her Gracepointe Church's Backpack Buddies program in Milwaukie, that hasn't stopped her.

She's asked lots of people and businesses to help the program, which provides food for the backpacks of schoolchildren who might otherwise have a bare-bones weekend. Although she really wasn't supposed to, she's even gone into bars, where she reports being met with not just checks but hugs. McClung has been, says Gracepointe's coordinator for the program Bonnie Marston, "very successful" at her fundraising efforts.

Thirteen percent of Oregon children have at least one unemployed parent, ranking the state third worst nationally in a dynamic that can have lifelong effects on kids.

A study on children released Wednesday by The Annie E. Casey Foundation included the unemployment statistic. Oregon and four other states tied, ranking only slightly better than Rhode Island at 14 percent and Nevada at 16 percent in 2010.

In the past weeks, we've been swamped by government numbers, many so big it's hard to take them in. But away from the D.C. caucuses, press conferences and sound bites, this economy is serving up some even more indigestible statistics:

In the year that ended June 30, the Oregon Food Bank for the first time had to provide more than 1 million emergency food boxes.

Off to the side of the House of Representatives chamber, as his colleagues debated whether the state school budget was too small or fatally too small, Rep. Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, argued for the state spending some more money in another area.

“I am going to fight to restore full funding for the Oregon Food Bank, and I’m going to argue with my colleagues,” said the freshman.